Seeking urgent medical help for lung issues vital: Doctors

Age healthily. Whatever that disrupt everyday “functions” must not remain overlooked because whatever sign or symptom there is, may also mean that other body organs are already affected.

These, coming from Emirates Thoracic Society vice president Dr. Bassam Mahboub and Emirates Society for Rheumatology president Dr. Shamma Al Nakotha – for the need for the community, across the country to be enlightened more on Interstitial Lung Diseases (ILD), Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IDF) and Progressive Pulmonary Fibrosis (PPF) – took place in Dubai on Thursday evening.

Part of an ongoing awareness campaign beginning in 2025, by the Boehringer-Ingelheim-Near East/UAE biopharmaceutical company; premiered as well, through the “A Breath of Hope,” was the latest information material on the three chronic diseases, generally characterised by the scarring of the lungs.

The material is a short educational film.

It features an elderly man who keeps on disturbing others with his dry cough, whenever he takes the elevator.

Throughout the disturbances and out of concern, even a pre-teen girl, advises the elderly, who also volunteers to be constantly exhausted and breathless, to go see a doctor, to ascertain his condition.

Later on, and after Mahboub and Al Nakotha had delivered their respective “Basics of the Insterstitial Lung Diseases and Pulmonary Fibrosis” and “When the Joints Aren’t The Only Targets,” Mahboub, in response to a question from the media, said: “The number of cases are increasing because we have been screening more people.”

“The challenge now is to make sure that a symptom as easily dismissed as breathlessness becomes a prompt to investigate than a reason to wait,” the Internal Medicine-Pulmonology consultant added.

On the Gulf Today question, about people tarrying on medical consultations, and not until they reach the point of helplessness, Mahboub, emphasising the nature of chronic diseases, replied: “The delay is common everywhere. All chronic diseases start slowly. Changes appear very slowly like today the person would say, ’Oh, I am only tired; or, ‘Maybe because I came out of the cold;’ or ‘Maybe it is only the weather.’ So the attribution to the right disease is not immediately known.”

“But the signs and symptoms keep coming and increasing gradually. For the health conscious person, he or she would know that these signs and symptoms are affecting him or her in doing the usual things like going to the gym or going upstairs,” Mahboub also said, stressing that best is seeking urgent medical diagnosis.

“That’s true,” interjected Al Nakotha.

Continuing, the Internal Medicine-Rheumatology consultant added: “From another perspective, if they have been diagnosed, what I tell them, concerning a cough, or other symptoms, like a skin rash and already diagnosed with another condition, I tell them, ‘We have to see the common causes by going to the Pulmonology Team, to the Dermatology Team. We have to see the things that do not go in the right direction. I have to think it might be autoimmune-related.”

“Some people come in because they want to observe first for themselves,” Al Nakotha added.

In her lecture, Al Nakotha discussed how recurring joints or muscular pains turn out to be already impacting the lungs; revealed by way of abrupt medical attention and advancing technology.

Interestingly, from Mahboub’s lecture was society’s mounting interest on anti-aging versus aging healthily.

This reporter asked for clarification. Mahboub answered: “On the prospective of IPF, ILD or lung fibrosis is considered one of the aging diseases of the lungs. Meaning, the lungs would reach a certain age wherein it is not elastic or it is already fibrotic.”

“With a defective gene, aging of the lungs gets faster. What we want is that for people to age healthily with chronic diseases such as these lung diseases, which could be controlled and could be contained.”

“We need to control their blood pressure. We need to control their diabetes, their lipid. We have to look at their heart, their joints.” Mahboub also said, mentioning at some point that while ILD, IPF and PPF may also arise from environmental causes, the leading hazards are “tobacco and smoking.”